'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Thinking About November (nytimes.com)
Barack Obama has an extraordinary opportunity in this year's election. He should do everything possible to avoid squandering it.
Patt Morrison: Vandalism and art, writ large (latimes.com)
L.A. muralists often see their works ruined -- both by vandals with spray cans and numb skulls with paint rollers.
EVAN SAWDEY: "'There's Never Anything Planned': An Interview With Mark Kozelek" (popmatters.com)
Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters' Mark Kozelek explains his unlikely inspiration, reflects on aging, and chooses beauty over catharsis.
Chris Riemenschneider: KISS' spaceman Ace Frehley is now grounded in solo life (Star Tribune)
He has the most uncool laugh you'll ever hear. It's a bit like a high-pitched hyena cackle, but with a New Yorker's nasal accent mixed in. Every KISS fan shuddered the first time they heard it.
Adam Sherwin: I sold myself short for fame and fortune, admits Andrea Bocelli (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
The multimillion-selling Italian tenor says that he compromised his natural operatic talent for the rewards of fame.
John Mark Eberhart: Stephenie Meyer's vampire novels were the dawning of a career (McClatchy Newspapers)
Maybe it's because she's a mother to three boys; maybe it's just because she's a compassionate person. But Stephenie Meyer loves to see the good in people-even the "bad guys."
Jessica Queller: Arthur Miller, Ally McBeal, and Me (huffingtonpost.com)
People often ask me how I became a writer. My standard reply: "It took me until the age of twenty-nine to figure out I didn't want to marry a manic-depressive, alcoholic writer, I just wanted to be one."
A voyage around my father (arts.guardian.co.uk/)
Set in the town of 'bugger all', Under Milk Wood was Dylan Thomas's masterpiece. His daughter Aeronwy tells Melissa Denes how it captured the world of her childhood.
Roger Moore: Helen Hunt returns to the limelight with 'Then She Found Me' (The Orlando Sentinel)
We haven't seen much of Helen Hunt in recent years. That's by choice, she says - her choice, not Hollywood's.
Roger Moore: 'The Life Before Her Eyes' director shrugs off criticism (The Orlando Sentinel)
Filmmaker Vadim Perelman has endured critical slings and arrows in his work. He took some hits for his debut film, the somber, meditative and Oscar-nominated "House of Sand and Fog." He's taking even more for his latest, "The Life Before Her Eyes."
Steve McVicker: 'The King of Texas' Looks at Eagle Pennell's Brilliant, but Wasted, Life (The Texas Observer)
The proto-indie filmmaker's highs and many lows are chronicled in this new documentary.
Ellise Fuchs: "Reflections: Interview with Gaetano Capizzi, Director of Cinemabiente" (popmatters.com)
"Cinemabiente means films that reflect the world, or act like a mirror of society. At the same time, they cause the viewer to reflect."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer burned off around 3, then returned about an hour later.
LA Judge Rules In Favor Of Family
Notorious B.I.G.
A judge has reinstated a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G., reversing an earlier decision to dismiss the case.
U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper threw out the lawsuit March 21 after determining the family missed a state deadline for bringing a claim against the city and two former police officers. The lawsuit was originally filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, then moved to federal court.
The family appealed, and the judge reversed her decision after finding federal claims in the case can proceed, according to court papers obtained Thursday.
Cooper gave the family 20 days to file a new lawsuit and drop the state claims.
Notorious B.I.G.
Canadian WW1 Vet Canadian Again
John Babcock
Canada's last known surviving veteran of World War One is becoming a Canadian citizen, the government said on Friday.
John Babcock, 107, was born in Canada but became a U.S. citizen in 1946 and had to give up his status as a British subject - as Canadians were designated before Canada's own citizenship act came into force a year later.
Canadian officials recently visited Babcock at his home in Spokane, Washington, to give him an award, and he told them he was interested in being granted citizenship in his birth country.
Babcock was only 15 years old and lied about his age when he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He moved to the United States in the 1920s.
John Babcock
New Book
Max Schreck
The first screen portrayal of Dracula was so eerie, some critics asked whether the actor himself could be a vampire. But since his death, little has been done to resurrect Max Schreck's reputation -- until now.
Schreck is best remembered for playing the cadaverous vampire Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent classic "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror," the first, unauthorized cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula."
The rest of his career has been largely forgotten -- unjustly, in the view of German author Stefan Eickhoff, who has written what he says is the first biography of Schreck.
Despite years of research, Eickhoff found there were virtually no anecdotes featuring Schreck, nor any references to him in the memoirs of the many people he had worked with.
Max Schreck
Berlin's Holocaust Memorial Concert
Kammersymphonie Berlin
Berlin's Holocaust memorial played host to an open-air concert on Friday, with musicians spread out across the field of concrete slabs and performing a modern experimental piece.
The Kammersymphonie Berlin twice performed composer Harald Weiss' sombre 17-minute piece "Vor dem Verstummen" ("Before Silence Falls") to mark the third anniversary of the monument's opening to the public.
The orchestra members were scattered among the 2,711 grey concrete slabs, against which some people leaned while listening to the music while others wandered around the labyrinthine memorial covering 19,000 square metres.
The memorial, next to the Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten Park, has become a key Berlin landmark, attracting more than eight million visitors since it opened on May 10, 2005.
It was designed by American architect Peter Eisenman and cost about $42 million to build. It is open 24 hours a day.
Kammersymphonie Berlin
Portrait Wins Australian Art Award
Heath Ledger
A portrait of Hollywood star Heath Ledger painted weeks before his death has won an Australian art award.
The painting features a bare-chested Ledger staring from the canvas as two images of the actor whisper into his ears.
On Thursday, it was awarded a secondary prize by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in its annual national portrait competition. Sydney artist Del Kathryn Barton won first prize with her self-portrait.
Heath Ledger
8 Months For Crash
Nick Bollea
A judge in Florida says the 17-year-old son of wrestler Hulk Hogan should serve eight months in jail for reckless driving. Nick Bollea was led off to begin his sentence immediately after Friday's ruling. He will be on five years' probation and lose his driving privileges for three years.
Authorities say Bollea was racing a friend in his father's sports car when he clipped a curb, spun out of control and slammed into a palm tree in downtown Clearwater, Florida, last August.
The impact left his friend critically injured and in need of lifetime medical care.
Nick Bollea
6 Years Later
R. Kelly
Jury selection began Friday in R. Kelly's long-delayed child pornography trial.
The 41-year-old R&B singer is accused of having sex with a girl as young as 13 on videotape. Kelly, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Gaughan read the 14-count indictment to some 150 potential jurors who packed the courtroom. Gaughan refused to allow reporters to view the proceedings. A court official said there weren't enough seats.
Earlier Friday, Gaughan denied a defense motion to again postpone the trial that already has been delayed for six years.
R. Kelly
Dig To Begin In Death Valley
Charlie Manson
The sheriff of the remote region where Charles Manson hid after a killing spree in the summer of 1969 said Friday that he will allow researchers to begin digging into the sandy soil in search of possible human remains.
In February, a team of forensic researchers visited the Death Valley ranch where Manson took refuge and found at least two sites that could be clandestine graves holding the bodies of additional victims.
Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze said he will allow a limited four-day excavation at Barker Ranch beginning May 20 because forensic tests of the soil had produced mixed results.
Manson and his followers hid out in the decrepit ranch after a series of gruesome murders that set Los Angeles on edge in 1969. They were arrested there in a raid.
Charlie Manson
'Insensitive & Inappropriate' At Dover
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.
A military official said claimed there have been no instances or charges that human and pet remains were mixed. But officials are now recommending that troops' remains be incinerated at a facility that is dedicated entirely to humans, in order to avoid any appearance of a problem. Or, officials said, families can opt to have a relative's remains sent to a local funeral home for cremation, which would be paid for by the military.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates believed the earlier situation was "insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
The Dover Air Force Base Port Mortuary, where all troops' remains arrive from the battlefield, does not have its own crematorium, so it contracts with two funeral homes for the cremations:
The Pentagon
Production Moving To NYC
Ugly Betty
Furious crewmembers on sitcom Ugly Betty are protesting the loss of hundreds of jobs on the hit TV show, when production moves from Los Angeles to New York City.
Plans to transfer the programme's production to the Big Apple were announced on Tuesday, but 300 people who currently contribute to the making of the programme - ranging from the dry cleaners and caterers to the construction firms - have slammed the show's bosses for the move.
And they are making their feelings known by taking out a full-page advert in Hollywood's top trade paper Variety, hitting out at the shock decision, which aims to take advantage of New York's new tax credits for Hollywood productions.
The disgruntled staff have all rallied together to raise the cash for the eye-catching ad, in which they write an open letter addressed to Californian Governor Arnold $chwarzenegger and other local authorities to help stop the loss of more business.
Ugly Betty
Crime Reporter Missing
Televisa
A crime reporter at Mexican broadcaster Televisa is reported missing, raising fear that he may be the latest journalist to come under attack amid an increase in drug-related violence.
Reporter Jorge Carrasco disappeared April 30 in Mexico City. According to a statement Friday from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, there is no hard evidence that his disappearance is linked to his work. However, an anonymous caller told federal authorities that Carrasco was forced into a pickup truck.
With about 30 reporters murdered since 2000, Mexico is the most dangerous nation for journalists in the Americas.
Televisa
No Resurrection
Necedah, WI
Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home's only bathroom, on the advice of a religious "superior" who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.
The children - a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy - cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body.
The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and self-described "bishop" Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child.
Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier, but that God told her Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough.
The boy at the house told a detective he had considered running away because he was uncomfortable with the situation. He said Bushey told him that demons were trying to make it look as if Middlesworth wouldn't come back to life, and that if she were to be discovered he and the girl would have to go to public school and get jobs because Middlesworth paid the bills.
Necedah, WI
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